The 72/96 thingy is annoying, but not really a problem for those of us who
want to offer ISDN and dialup on the same hardware/lines.
If you place a CSV call to a Max with all 48 modems in use, the Max should
return a busy to the switch and the switch should overflow the call over
to the next trunk group. Of course, all of this requires that the phone
company has its shit together and can setup your trunk groups to overflow.
We had lots of fun getting our trunk groups setup correctly.
> Both the PM-3 and 4002 support dialin as well as nailed up WAN connections
> using PPP and Frame Relay. But from the 4002 datasheet it does T1 and
> frac T1, doesn't mention channelized. I see no mention of channelized T1,
> but they *must* since they say you can do modem dialins without the ISDN
> option - that implies channelized T1 dialins. Since they can do that and
> they support T1/Frac-T1 routing for WAN links, one would expect they support
> channelized WAN links. *shrug* Maybe not.
They do. They support D4 channel banks and channelized T1 etc.
> Reading their info it looks like base support is flat channelized T1, which
> Frame Relay and ISDN as part of the 'Hybrid Access' software upgrade.
I'm not to clear on their feature sets, but the HA stuff is what is needed
to offer ISDN - ISDN calls. Kind silly...
> I also don't see mention of multilink PPP support across chassis.
Not in the current software release. Of course their current software
release says OSPF support works, which isn't the whole story, but anyhow.
> Apparently the 4002 is nothing but a 4004 with the software crippling the
> other 2 ports. You need to upgrade the software to get the other 2 ports.
Yep. Save your money, buy a 4004. The upgrade cost from a 4002 to a 4004
is more expensive than the cost difference b/t a 4002 and a 4004.
> List of 4002 chassis is $11,000, digital modem cards are $6,250 each.
> I don't
> quite understand what you need to make a 4002 like a PM-3 - I *think* you
> need 'Hybrid Access64' for $1,500. There is also an option to enable ISDN
> for $1,000 and Frame Relay for $1,000 - but I think those are both part of
> Hybrid Access. They don't seem to have a great deal of Pricing info on the
> web, or I couldn't find it. I got these prices when I stumbled across
> <http://www.ascend.com/products/max4002-4/max4002-4produpdate.txt>
Actually, you need the HA64 and the ISDN software.
HA64 is $1500 list, the ISDN software is $1000 list.
You can expect to find prices b/t 25% and 35% below list...
> Since it isn't clear, and you have to call/fax/email for pricing info (lame)
> I can't be sure of the current prices or bundles, etc. And I'm not
> positive what one needs. But even doing a basic setup, their list is a lot
> higher than ours. And I know, from sales, that our ISP discount also comes
> out to a lower price for a unit configured with modems.
I'd avoid their ISP discount box. Its basically a way to move all their
old stock of Max4000s and 8 port modem cards.
> Apparently filtering and firewall abilities are an option on the 4002, they
> are standard on the PM-3 as with all of our products. Wait, another
> document indicates packet filters are standard, but fails to say what the
> difference with the firewall option is... I love their web...
Yep, their site is pretty messed up in places. I believe that you can
have filters, but the 'Firewalling' option may be refering to the NAT
functions. I'm not too sure.
> So the MAX 4002 seems more comparable to a PM-3 than the RA6300. The MAX
> has features/baggage that the PM-3 doesn't - we don't have all those expansion
> cards to turn a PM-3 into a video conferencing system, hub router (they have
> V.35 and T1 port cards), or BRI cards. Interestingly to me, the BRI cards
> and modem cards take the same slots, so it looks like using BRI reduces the
> number of modems. It isn't clear that you can use the built in modems with
> users coming in on BRI, but I'll give them the doubt on that one. The 4002
> supports TACACS and TACACS+ as well as RADIUS. But with everyone and their
> duck supporting RADIUS these days, I personally don't see it as a major issue.
I think once the PM3 is a mature product it will do VERY well for the in
the for which it was designed. I can't say that its an option that I'll
be ready to consider until its been around for 6 months or so.
[snip]
> Their web site, IMHO, doesn't have a lot of technical information in an
> easily retrievable format. Xylo's site is far better, and I'd like to
> think ours is too (being webmaster and all). I had to poke around a lot to
> find things, and then lots of things weren't clearly stated or defined.
> And some if it was only available on the PDF, not in HTML.
Yep. Their page annoyed me alot when I couldn't view PDF.
Have a good one.
| Matthew N. Dodd | winter@jurai.net | http://www.jurai.net/~winter |
| Technical Manager | mdodd@intersurf.net | http://www.intersurf.net |
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